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Sunday, 20 March 2016

Fourth attack in Turkey this year

New
CCTV Footage Shows Moment Of Deadly Istanbul Suicide Attack

Update:
Here is the latest CCTV footage of the attack. Caution: graphic.

For
the fourth time this year and the second time in seven days, one of
Turkey’s major cities has been hit with a deadly suicide bombing.

Just
six days after an explosion ripped
through a transit hub in
Ankara’s Kizilay neighborhood killing 34 people and wounding more
than 100, a
bustling shopping street in Istanbul was shaken by a powerful blast
on Saturday.

The
death toll now stands at 5 and frankly, it
probably would have been much, much worse had the blast come later in
the day.
“The attack took place on Istiklal Caddesi, a pedestrian street
that was relatively quiet Saturday morning but is usually thronged
with shoppers, strollers and buskers later in the day,” AFP
reports.
“The street, which adjoins Taksim Square in the European part of
the city, was evacuated after the attack.”

The
area is extremely popular with tourists. The TAK - the Kurdistan
Freedom Falcons - have warned foreigners about supporting the
country's tourism industry which the group says feeds the Erdogan
regime.

"Tourism
is one of the important sources feeding the dirty and special war, so
it is a major target we aim to destroy," the group said flatly,
after last weekend's bombing which was carried out by a
24-year-old female student and apparent TAK sympathizer named by the
group as Seher Cagla Demir. "We
warn the foreign and native tourists not to go to the tourist ...
areas in Turkey.

It
wasn't just the TAK warning tourists. The US embassy in Ankara
cautioned American citizens that more attacks could be forthcoming
ahead of Kurdish Nevruz.

Authorities
say at least three dozen people were injured, seven of which are in
critical condition.

The
Kurdish New Year (March 21) is expected to be a dangerous time in
Turkey. Erdogan has stepped up the military siege on Kurdish enclaves
in the southeast and the PKK and TAK have responded in kind. Cities
like Cizre have been reduced nearly to rubble and look more like
Aleppo than they do like Turkish urban centers. Erdogan is also irate
about Syrian Kurds' move to declare
federalism on
Turkey's southern border. Here are images from the aftermath of
today's attack:

Expect
either the PKK or the TAK to be blamed/claim the attack in fairly
short order. This is a self-fulfilling prophecy and it was set in
motion intentionally by Erdogan in the wake of last June's elections.
The more Kurdish-linked attacks there are, the more excuses Ankara
has to crack down on the Kurds.

The
President will use this as still more evidence of why the definition
of "terrorist" needs to be
expanded, why
Kurdish strongholds in the southeast must be kept under curfew, why
HDP lawmakers should be stripped of their immunity, and, ultimately,
why the powers of the presidency need to be expanded.